I don't have a Mac so I'm unable to check. How does Parallels handle Metro apps? Are they overlapped as classic windows applications (for lack of a better term) or they take the entire screen as in Metro?

How many companies have to implement custom Start Menus before Microsoft admit the demand for it exists and is significant, and put it back into the OS properly?

(Just as an option, of course. The Start Screen can stay as well for situations where it's a better fit, like tablets. I'm sure a company with Microsoft's resources can manage to maintain two versions of the UI, providing different views on the same data/inputs.)

How many companies have to implement custom Start Menus before Microsoft admit the demand for it exists and is significant

... by people who don't know how to use their computers. Winkey search is dramatically faster then mousing through the Start Menu. Microsoft doesn't, and shouldn't, continue to enable people who are can't comprehend that they're not using Windows 95 anymore.

I really don't even care about Metro & the Start Screen; I just have no patience at all for mouse loving idiots

I tend to use LogMeIn in conjunction with Parallels to run Windows on a Mac remotely, which works pretty darn well, even on a slow connection. This seems to fulfill pretty much everything I want it to do, and if I had Pro version, I could even have remote sound playing on non-mobile devices. And the app only cost $20. So I wonder what the Parallels Access app could do better.

EDIT: Read the criticism article. Seems like it doesn't do anything better...

How many companies have to implement custom Start Menus before Microsoft admit the demand for it exists and is significant, and put it back into the OS properly?

Whether or not changes need to be made to the UI beyond 8.1, the existence of third-party and OEM customizations isn't in itself evidence that a UI is broken. Are MotoBlur and Sense proof that vanilla Android is wrong or in need of fixing? Were Vaio Gate and Dell Dock evidence of UI shortcomings in Windows 7?

How many companies have to implement custom Start Menus before Microsoft admit the demand for it exists and is significant

I really don't even care about Metro & the Start Screen; I just have no patience at all for mouse loving idiots

I take it you mean idiots like my 70 year old dad who might just be 50 time smarter than you?

If he's 50 times smarter then me, then he won't have an issue with winkey search. Besides, for years and years we've been holding back so we don't offend the proverbial "grandma" (or grandfather in your case) and at some point the world needs to move on.

We didn't hold back on cars just to indulge grandparents who grew up with horse and buggies.

How many companies have to implement custom Start Menus before Microsoft admit the demand for it exists and is significant

... by people who don't know how to use their computers. Winkey search is dramatically faster then mousing through the Start Menu. Microsoft doesn't, and shouldn't, continue to enable people who are can't comprehend that they're not using Windows 95 anymore.

I really don't even care about Metro & the Start Screen; I just have no patience at all for mouse loving idiots

How many companies have to implement custom Start Menus before Microsoft admit the demand for it exists and is significant

... by people who don't know how to use their computers. Winkey search is dramatically faster then mousing through the Start Menu. Microsoft doesn't, and shouldn't, continue to enable people who are can't comprehend that they're not using Windows 95 anymore.

I really don't even care about Metro & the Start Screen; I just have no patience at all for mouse loving idiots

Winkey search is dramatically faster then mousing through the Start Menu.

Please don't cite this as a reason the Start Screen is better. I have been able to hit the Windows key and type to search since Vista, and have in 7 and 8 + Start8.

Agreed, and the problem is that even though the Start Menu has been pointless since Vista, people still keep mousing through menus. The Start Screen is obviously oriented towards touch, thus mouse use is greatly discouraged, and thus search is now forced. This is desirable as they should have been search to begin with.

I really don't even care about Metro & the Start Screen; I just have no patience at all for mouse loving idiots

So to reverse the image macro: "Stop disliking what I like!"

Look, many things in life come down to personal preference with no right or wrong way to do it. This isn't one of those things. Search is faster, that means it is objectively and unequivocally better. Therefore, means everyone who wants to mouse through a menu instead of search is wrong. It's just that simple.

How many companies have to implement custom Start Menus before Microsoft admit the demand for it exists and is significant, and put it back into the OS properly?

(Just as an option, of course. The Start Screen can stay as well for situations where it's a better fit, like tablets. I'm sure a company with Microsoft's resources can manage to maintain two versions of the UI, providing different views on the same data/inputs.)

The start menu was a shitty mess for a long time. I say good riddance. Did you actually enjoy digging through it to find something? What MS didn't do well in Win8 was like the 3 things the start menu actually was useful for, they needed to leave somewhere on the desktop, instead of bringing you to metro for it. That includes indexed search, shutdown options, and I don't even know if I can think of another..anything else useful like control panel and run is already in the right click menu (or winkey+x). even if indexed search was metroized, it could have just popped in like the charms bar does, not take you out of the desktop as a whole.

How many companies have to implement custom Start Menus before Microsoft admit the demand for it exists and is significant

... by people who don't know how to use their computers. Winkey search is dramatically faster then mousing through the Start Menu. Microsoft doesn't, and shouldn't, continue to enable people who are can't comprehend that they're not using Windows 95 anymore.

I really don't even care about Metro & the Start Screen; I just have no patience at all for mouse loving idiots

Switching between the keyboard and mouse is bad ergonomics. There are times when it's appropriate to stay on the keyboard, and times when it's more efficient to click. The OS should be designed for both.

This seems especially true when touch is factored in. Touch on a keyboardless device is going to be more efficient than typing.

How many companies have to implement custom Start Menus before Microsoft admit the demand for it exists and is significant, and put it back into the OS properly?

Whether or not changes need to be made to the UI beyond 8.1, the existence of third-party and OEM customizations isn't in itself evidence that a UI is broken. Are MotoBlur and Sense proof that vanilla Android is wrong or in need of fixing? Were Vaio Gate and Dell Dock evidence of UI shortcomings in Windows 7?

There will ALWAYS be companies trying to customize UIs. Always.

None of the four examples you give reverse fundamental design decisions made between one version of the OS (Android / Win Vista) and its successor. The tablet-style UI in the desktop was the main consumer-facing change made between Windows 7 and Windows 8, and the popularity of third-party start menu apps represents a rejection of that change. Lenovo have started pre-loading them on all Windows 8 machines - we're past the 'minority need' point on this I think.

How many companies have to implement custom Start Menus before Microsoft admit the demand for it exists and is significant

... by people who don't know how to use their computers. Winkey search is dramatically faster then mousing through the Start Menu. Microsoft doesn't, and shouldn't, continue to enable people who are can't comprehend that they're not using Windows 95 anymore.

I really don't even care about Metro & the Start Screen; I just have no patience at all for mouse loving idiots

That's somewhat of a straw man. The Windows 8 Start Screen doesn't really make search by text any faster either. As far as I'm concerned, the Start Screen caters far more to the point and click crowd. I personally dislike the Start screen simply because it disrupts my workflow. I don't see the need for my screen to be hijacked merely because I'm opening a program/shortcut.

If the Start Menu was useless, as you say, then Microsoft should have replaced it with merely a search bar rather than with the Start Screen.

Whether or not changes need to be made to the UI beyond 8.1, the existence of third-party and OEM customizations isn't in itself evidence that a UI is broken. Are MotoBlur and Sense proof that vanilla Android is wrong or in need of fixing? Were Vaio Gate and Dell Dock evidence of UI shortcomings in Windows 7?

There will ALWAYS be companies trying to customize UIs. Always.

None of the four examples you give reverse fundamental design decisions made between one version of the OS (Android / Win Vista) and its successor. The tablet-style UI in the desktop was the main consumer-facing change made between Windows 7 and Windows 8, and the popularity of third-party start menu apps represents a rejection of that change. Lenovo have started pre-loading them on all Windows 8 machines - we're past the 'minority need' point on this I think.

Well, there are third-party programs that restore the classic launcher function to the Apple menu in OSX ("classic menu" is one example). A lot of people forget that Apple had a menu-based launcher prior to OSX, and that was abandoned in favor of the dock, spotlight search, and now Launchpad. Coincidentally, those three OSX means of launching programs correspond to the three Win8 methods (taskbar pins, start screen search, and start screen pins).

For better or for worse, the change in UI from Windows 7 to Windows 8 isn't unprecedented. It has direct precedent in OSX.

The menu is a built-in feature of Windows 8 which has access to shutdown and restart, the control panel, file explorer, disk management, command prompt, and other system tools. It looks like this:

I don't see any shutdown and restart options there. Power options is a shortcut to the Control Panel.

I hate the decision to hide the shutdown options under the settings charm.

One weird thing is that if you send a close command to the windows shell, you get the classic shutdown prompt that I thought was totally gone in windows 8. You can see it by clicking on your taskbar in an empty spot (so it gets focus) and hitting alt+f4.

For myself and some friends, I wrote this, which once compiled to an exe, can be made a shortcut in your taskbar for quicker desktop shutdowns than the winkey+i charms bar. It executes 2 lines of code and closes, which mimics the clicking and alt+f4.

I would post a link to the compiled exe but I figure that's probably not a great idea.

"... Start8 brings back the Start menu, and ModernMix lets you run Metro-style applications in a window on the desktop. Parallels makes them available as a single download in the virtual machine's settings."

This is exactly what Windows 8 should have been. Microsoft should have kept the tablet-oriented UI as an add-on rather than the opposite.